


Squick

by FullmetalFeminist



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Beekeeping, Bees, Bullets, M/M, Phobias, Wallpaper, bee stings, beetles, brief mention of the taste of blood, dermestidae, panic disorder, skulls - Freeform, there are a lot of dead people in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 04:09:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8235608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullmetalFeminist/pseuds/FullmetalFeminist
Summary: Taking care of bees is challenging, and unexpected things can happen. There are a lot of bees and beetles and skulls and definitely some tea and honey. I'm not kidding about the dead people.





	

 Sunlight streamed in through their bedroom window like a beacon. It shone on his face, blinding him before he could even properly open his eyes.  

  _Fuck._

 He tried to shift away, but fatigue overwhelmed him. He rarely slept well, never for more than a few hours. He could tell by the slant of the autumn sun that it was late morning. Which meant he'd been out for at least ten hours. 

  _Sherlock._

 He'd drugged him again. 

 It was those damned cupcakes, he knew it. He  _should_ have known it. Since when did Sherlock bake, anyway?

 He struggled to sit up. He realized it was silent in the cottage, which meant Sherlock was outside. Then, slowly, he remembered. 

  _The bees._

 He pushed himself from the bed and pulled the white eyelet curtains apart. He could see Sherlock, in full beekeeping kit, leaning over the bee box he kept to the east of the cottage. There were two more on the north and west. Today Sherlock was harvesting the honey. 

 No wonder he'd drugged him. 

 He watched Sherlock lay down the fume board, covered in a noxious chemical blend he'd made himself. It had barely covered the opened box before the bees came flooding out. 

 His eyes widened as Sherlock calmly backed away. There was a bucket and wooden blade at his feet. He held a steel frame lifter in one hand and a smoldering smoker in the other. Sherlock watched as his bees evacuated, making note of the direction they fled in. 

 As Sherlock started toward the box, he stepped back from the window. His breath was shallow and rapid despite the cocktail of depressants he'd no doubt been fed. He hadn't always been this way. 

 He shut the curtains and left their bedroom. Feeling unsteady, he trailed his hand along the rosebud wallpaper lining the hall. They hadn't managed to strip it away yet. This was only their second year at the cottage; they still lived partially in London. They both couldn't quite give up their work despite their plans for a more peaceful life together. 

 He leaned against the roses, wishing his head were clearer. His breath was evening out now. The panic was receding. 

 The first few months had been so easy. In the spring they took up residence at the cottage and Sherlock had begun beekeeping. He had always been charmed by the idea and had bought himself fir bee boxes, oak buckets and blades, a beekeeper suit and every other possible beekeeping accoutrement. And, of course, the bees.

 In summer, Sherlock took his first harvest. They had tasted the different honeys and he fell in love with a pale, bitter type. Sherlock told him it was willow honey, which he later hid from him. "I'm moving the boxes next week, so that's all the willow you'll have," Sherlock informed him. He _did_ have an avaricious sweet tooth. 

 Then came autumn. 

 He pushed himself away from the wall and dropped into the first armchair in the front room. Here, they'd managed to redecorate. 221B was present, from Billy on the mantel to the mirror behind him. Sherlock never lost his penchant for decorating with skulls. Years ago he'd realized he enjoyed them as well, and had added to the collection. 

 Sherlock had been less than thrilled. He thought, at first, it was because he had ruined Billy's uniqueness, but it was only because Sherlock had discovered the dermestidae.

 "Are you really that _squeamish_?" he'd scoffed. 

 Sherlock had peered into the plastic bug cage then, and watched the beetles swarm the skull within. "This is called a Kritter Keeper. You'll forgive me if I question the effort you've put forth to secure your pets."

 He laughed then, until Sherlock told him they were also known as 'bow bugs', which infest violin cases and feast on the bow hair. 

 He'd got rid of them immediately. 

 Later that week he'd come home to a perfectly white, fleshless skull, held in Sherlock's hands as he'd walked through the door. 

 "How'd you do this?" he asked excitedly, turning the skull to examine each angle. 

 Sherlock gestured to himself and said, "Chemist."

 He'd kissed him then, cradling his gorgeous new skull between them. "You're brilliant, of course," he'd said against Sherlock's lips. "How could I forget?"

 That skull, along with two others, resided at the cottage. Each time one arrived, Sherlock cleaned them for him, but he wouldn't reveal his formula. 

 "You'll tell me one day."

 Sherlock had laughed. " _That_ is the last thing I'll do."

  * * *

 "I want yours," he'd said absently one day, not long after the first skull had arrived. 

 Sherlock had looked up from his microscope with a furrowed brow. 

 "When you die," he added. "Not this minute."

 "What makes you think I'll die before you?" he asked. 

 He'd been turning the new skull in his hands as he sat on the floor by Sherlock's feet. He looked up at his exquisite man, his eyes trailing the path of his right zygomatic arch. He looked back to the skull and asked, "Do you remember what I said to you, when we first met?"

* * *

 He glanced toward the kitchen and slowly stood. It must have taken him a good half hour to get this far. He'd have to speak with Sherlock about the dosage. Obviously he'd been a bit heavy-handed. 

 He shuffled to the kitchen and pressed his hands against the sink's edge as he looked out at the shed. Sherlock was carrying in the bucket of honeycomb. The entire bee business had been banished to the shed long ago, since last autumn. 

 He turned to look back at the other skulls on the mantel. One was unique among its siblings, being the only one bearing a bullet hole. An almost perfect circle through the fractured frontal bone made it more delicate as well. By the time he'd handed it over to Sherlock for the final stripping, it had already traveled half the world and visited a famous taxidermist in Paris for an initial dermestidae treatment. 

 It was his favorite. 

_Was._

 Early last September had been gorgeous, unusually ideal in its weather. They'd spent their days walking though blazing forests and their nights curled together by the fireplace. Bright sunlight, crisp temperatures. Sherlock had fussed over his bees, speaking constantly of overwintering preparations, honey harvesting, the dangers of swarming. He'd tried to appear interested, but it had been months of hearing about nucs and supers and moisture contents and diatase and refractometers and  _oh god,_ the bees. 

 Sherlock had fallen into a terrible habit of bringing individual bees into the cottage to show him. Initially, he blamed it on that. 

 The first time he got stung, he'd been asleep in Sherlock's chair. He'd woken shouting, clasping his own hand where the stinger had been left behind. Sherlock had come straight away and gently scraped the stinger out and applied a paste of bicarbonate of soda and water. "I'm sorry, love. One must have got in the house," he apologized. 

 The second time was in the shower. 

 The third, fourth and fifth times all happened when he tried to adjust a window sash that had slid down. He'd killed those bees just as Sherlock found him. Sherlock had looked horrified, not at his stings, but at the three tiny bodies he'd smashed with a book. 

 By the time he'd been stung thirteen times, even Sherlock had to admit something was very wrong. He was always so fastidious with his bees; he wouldn't be so careless as to let so many inside. They began to inspect their cottage, and when he saw a bee crawl out from an outlet, he'd had enough. 

 "I am calling pest control!"

 "You know they won't do honeybees!"

 In the end, Sherlock had climbed up to the roof and pulled away a loose shingle. As it came away in his hand, bees began to pour out. 

 Sherlock managed to get back down with only a few stings. "Well, there they are," he said breathlessly. "I should have known. I didn't super them soon enough."

 "They're yours?!" 

 "Yes. Must have swarmed when we were away in August." 

 He watched the bees circling their hive in the roof. He was shaking. They were in the roof, in the walls, and they'd been stinging him for weeks. 

 Sherlock was eyeing him warily. "I think you should go back to the city while I take care of this," he said. 

 He had left that moment. 

 Sherlock refused pest control, instead enlisting a swarm collector. It took only two hours to remove the bees. A local contractor repaired the roof a few days later. After a week had passed, Sherlock called to ask him home. 

 He'd come back reluctantly. 

 He swore he could still hear buzzing in the walls. He checked the windows obsessively. He dreamed of swarms when he slept, of Sherlock falling from the roof, of venom coursing through his veins. 

 Once the weather shifted and the first frost came, he began to feel less anxious. Soon the bees would be inactive, remaining in their hives through the winter. He stayed in London on beekeeping days, but still found himself tapping his fingers, breathing in shallow huffs, and checking his mobile constantly until Sherlock texted him. 

**Done. Come home. SH**

It was the last anticipated beekeeping duty until spring. He'd come back to the cottage that night and held Sherlock for a long time in the front room. Just locked his arms around him and sighed deeply. He'd been facing the mantel, his head on Sherlock's shoulder, when he saw a bee lurking in the fractured skull's eye socket. 

 After Sherlock had plucked the bee from the skull with his bare hands and returned it to the hive, there had been a lot of shouting, followed by a sedative-laced cup of tea. 

 Sherlock would never get rid of his bees, but it didn't matter. 

 He looked over at the stove and saw a condensation-laced kettle on the hob. A tray on the counter next to it held a cup, his hibiscus and rosehip tea, and a covered plate. He lit the hob and lifted the cover. Generous slices of soda bread and a small hexagon jar of willow honey. His lips twitched to a smile, and he looked back out at the shed. He knew Sherlock was busy kneading honeycombs in a linen-lined trough, letting it drip through a mesh strainer, bottling his raw honey. But not for much longer. He added a cup to the tray and measured out Sherlock's offensively expensive, artisan-blended tea. When everything was prepared, he carried the tray out to the small iron table in the garden and waited. 

  _Five, four, three..._

 The door to the shed opened and Sherlock emerged, shielding his eyes from the sun. He walked towards him, smiling. 

 It didn't matter how he looked. But seeing his swagger as he walked, sunlight gleaming off his curls with flame-coloured leaves at his feet... it was indeed a gorgeous sight.

 "Good morning, darling," Sherlock said as he sat down.

 "You used too much diazepam," he responded.

 "Oh? Sorry."

 He nodded back, taking a sip of his ruby tea. Sherlock lifted the saucer off his own cup. "Thank you," he said, leaning over for a brief kiss, the glint of the silver bead chain around his neck catching the light.  

 "Why do you wear those old things?" he asked. 

 Sherlock pulled the dog tags from under his shirt and ran his finger over the name imprinted on them. "I like keeping them close," he said. "It reminds me of who you really are."

 He turned away. "Ugh. It's not as if I made a career of it."

 They drank and he ate, savoring the taste of the honey. He was glad Sherlock had stored it away. He always took such good care of him.

 "I have something to tell you," Sherlock announced. Without waiting for a response, he went on. "I've added a bequest to my will."

 He looked up, eyes wide. "You did that for me?"

 Sherlock tapped his forehead. "All yours."

 He was enthralled. Eyes luminous, lips parted. "I love you, Sherlock Holmes."

 Sherlock leaned back in his chair. It was so rare that he said it, he needed a moment to take it in. He breathed in and said back, "I love you too, Jim."

 They sat there smiling at each other, then resumed their breakfast. With a mouth full of honey and bread, Jim asked, "No one's going to kick up a fuss about this, are they?"

 Sherlock narrowed his eyes, knowing perfectly well what 'they' he meant. Mummy, Daddy and Mycroft were gone. 

 "You are well aware I haven't spoken to John in years," he said coldly. 

 Jim shrugged, and poured out more honey. "Just checking." He took another bite, letting the memory of John shouting an ultimatum at Sherlock ring in his ears. He'd never seen Sherlock look more offended, and just like that, he'd chosen Jim, and John had become an expat. "Is he still in New Zealand?"

 "For the last five years, yes."

 Jim smiled. He knew exactly where John was. On their mantel, next to that wife. Her bridesmaid ruled over an end table. Jim made it a priority to keep anyone who had hurt Sherlock as close as possible. Still, nothing in their front room would compare to Sherlock's skull. 

 Sherlock had been staring at him. "Do you remember what you said to me when we first met?" he asked.

 Jim swallowed the last of his tea. It tasted faintly of blood. "I said, 'I'm going to kill you anyway, someday.'" 

 Sherlock had his best public school face on. "Still waiting."

 Jim rolled his eyes. "I also said I didn't want to rush it."

 Sherlock eyed him calmly. "It's been nine years, Jim."

 He shrugged again, popping the last of the bread and honey into his mouth. "I'll get around to it."

 

**Author's Note:**

> The reason I named this Squick is because it houses my bee phobia, my fear of flesh-eating beetles, a bunch of dead characters I love very much and a weirdly domestic relationship. And the wallpaper. I fucking hate wallpaper. 
> 
> *All bee horror was based on my own miserable experiences*
> 
> Love to ghislainem70 and green_violin_bow for advice!
> 
> To my amazing friend introvert80, thank you so much for being my beta ❤️ IOU 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for Squick by FullmetalFeminist](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8249590) by [Ghislainem70](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghislainem70/pseuds/Ghislainem70)




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